Powderday! Snowalert! Work it, girls!

After last night’s blog post I quickly got up from the couch to check my bedroom temperature but with chilly 7 degrees there I decided that I would rather sleep in the living room where the fire was still going and the wind was howling in the chimney. My wake up call this morning was my roommate Jo who was super-excited and told me she’s going to Ohau Ski Field – a tiny hill two hours north of Wanaka (with one chairlift by the way!) because it’s a Powderday!

That made me think I should tell you guys something about New Zealand Powderdays – a phenomenon very interesting to us foreign ski instructors because Kiwis get absolutely crazy about tiny amounts of snow. And when I say tiny we really talk about centimeters. To give you some examples – here are some recent Facebook updates of the Wanaka ski fields Treble Cone & Cardrona:w

When Treble Cone has had 10 to 15 cm of snow it’s already massive for New Zealand so I can absolutely understand that Jo was stoked this morning when the Ohau Snow Report (below) said 25cm of fresh snow had fallen overnight. It’s one of those days where probably everybody who has a day off or can get one is on their way to Ohau. It’s one of those days where Kiwis get their wide skis out, put their Go Pros on and get really excited about skiing all day – even when we would only consider it a regular skiing day.

At the end of the day it’s not necessarily lots of white tracks on the mountain but rather green tracks because once an area has been skied the alpine tussock and grass shines through the little dust of snow. And New Zealanders are pretty good at skiing on tussock, I learned the other day at Coronet Peak… but that’s another story to be told soon.

So here’s to all the Kiwis who are enjoying their massive powder day today – on the 60cm snow base plus the 25cm of fresh snow that Ohau currently has. Looking forward to hearing the powder stories tonight, seeing the Facebook updates of an epic New Zealand Powderday and yep – to be very honest, I wish I was out there too but in my current condition I would probably fall asleep on the chair lift on my way up and even miss getting off in time. So I’ll leave all those freshies to the lovely Kiwi people and as Jo usually says: “Work it, girl!”